Prior to 1996, Everything But the Girl’s music tended towards jazz and folk-influenced pop that was a part of England’s “Sophisti-pop” scene alongside The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout, and The Style Council. But then New York DJ Todd Terry remixed “Missing” from 1994’s Amplified Heart, blending the original’s soulful vocals and acoustic guitars with a house groove, and turning the song into a global sensation.

That success inspired Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt to further pursue that musical direction for 1996’s Walking Wounded. Some folks have claimed that Walking Wounded was the first time that jungle beats were incorporated into pop music. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but Walking Wounded was certainly eye-opening for me when I first heard it in the late ’90s.

I was already familiar with jungle and drum ‘n’ bass music by then thanks to artists like Aphex Twin and Faith Massive, but this use of breakbeats and jungle tempos in the service of emotional pop ballads was something entirely new. In other words, the sleek production and skittering beats heard on “Before Today,” “Wrong,” and the title track do nothing to undermine the songs’ inherent emotions. Rather, they make the songs feel endlessly modern and contemporary.

Of course, when you have a voice as timeless and graceful as Tracey Thorn’s, I’m not sure what could ruin it. On the title track, she laments “nothing can replace the us I knew” and “I could have loved you forever” while “Mirrorball” finds her mourning youthful losses and indiscretions. And when she sings “It’s wrong to feel this way/I know it’s wrong, I know it’s bad/To only see what isn’t there/To want and want and never have” on “Good Cop Bad Cop,” she could be referring to mental illness or the struggle of trying to maintain a healthy, functional relationship. In either case, it’s both heartbreaking and spellbinding.

Shortly after discovering Walking Wounded, the album became my go-to soundtrack for late night drives, as I took the long way home after work in order to try and sort my life out. And more specifically, my love life. I felt hopelessly out of my depth, and Thorn and Watt’s songs gave a voice to all of my fears and longings.